March 2017

Now Available

The Score #2 – Running In Place

You feel an urge to go out and see the world, but you really don’t mind waiting either.

by Emil Hofileña, art by Andrew Panopio

The Score recommends a playlist of local music to be played alongside your everyday experiences, adding some bounce and rhythm to the story of your life.

► The Gory Orgies – Astronaut

You close your eyes for what feels like fifteen minutes and the next thing you know, the sun is blasting into your room. You are exactly as tired as you were when you fell asleep. Your hand fumbles lazily towards the night table, looking to hit the snooze button. You pick up your phone and, through squinted eyes, see that your alarms are already off. All nine of them.

You lie there in yesterday’s sweaty clothes, totally uncomfortable but totally unwilling to do anything about it. You convince yourself that you don’t need to brush your teeth just yet. You don’t deserve this, but you sure as hell need it. The day can wait.

► Justo – Bandwidth

Nothing changed after that cold shower. You’re sitting up on your bed, laptop close to your face. You scroll past photos of your friends posing on the beach, hanging off the sides of boats, diving from cliffs. You feel a searing urge to jump through your screen and into the water. Your eyes dart up to the aircon.

You keep scrolling. Someone is celebrating their newly cleaned room. There’s no way you’re doing that, you think to yourself. Your eyes dart up to the aircon again. It’s the closest thing you’ll get to a vacation.

► Mellow Fellow – Tired

Your hands twist and pull like clockwork. Over and over, the pen in your hands is disassembled and reassembled, and you wish you learned how to solve a Rubik’s cube.

You toss the stress ball at the far wall and it bounces back down the wooden floor and into your hand. You throw it again and watch helplessly as the ball rolls under your desk, a few feet away but completely out of reach.

Your stomach groans. It’s two hours before lunch. You can afford to wait a little longer, you tell yourself. You don’t mind waiting.

► Asch – Meh Meh

You lean half your body over the side of the bed, reaching for the stress ball, and you accidentally brush some loose papers onto the floor. You gather them up in a pile and leaf through them.

There’s an old quiz you flunked from high school. An instruction manual. A page from an English literature reading assignment. A brochure to your dream school. A palanca letter from back when writing letters meant something.

Someone knocks on your door and calls you for lunch. You fish out an empty box from your closet and put the papers in. There’s no way you’re cleaning your whole room, you think to yourself. At least, not all at once.